TALO has announced the appointment of Ant Allen CEng MIStructEas Technical Director. With a 40-year career in construction and specialist expertise in MMC, structural engineering and structural warranty certification, Ant brings a unique combination of technical rigour and industry insight to the TALO leadership team.
A chartered structural engineer, he has been a member of the Engineering Council and Institution of Structural Engineers for over 30years. His experience spans newbuild housing, refurbishment, commercial and leisure developments, and around two decades specialising in offsite. He has worked across both the public and private sectors, as a lead structural designer for social housing and award-winning architecture, and on forensic interrogation on behalf of major building insurers.
Most recently, Ant played a pivotal role at ICW Group, the UK’s third largest structural warranty provider, where he led the development of ICW’s MMC accreditation process. He managed a team of warranty surveyors overseeing residential and commercial developments – including housing projects of 300+ units – and worked closely with underwriters to certify MMC systems.
At TALO, Ant will be involved in commercial operations and will provide technical leadership to support developer clients and their design teams from the earliest stage of a project through to completion. His expertise in structural design will play a central role in ensuring every housebuilding project benefits from a fully integrated and engineered TALO solution, including its new ICW-accredited foundation system and offsite manufactured timber superstructures.
Ant Allen said: “I have worked with many MMC systems over the years and visited the TALO offsite manufacturing centre as part of their ICW accreditation process. This is the best closed panel solution I have seen for low rise housing. TALO has a trailblazing approach that combines superior quality, thermal efficiency and consistency of manufacture from start to finish. The management team has a refreshing, open-minded approach and an impressive drive to raise standards for low-rise housing through innovation.
“TALO’s system exceeds Passivhaus energy standards as standard and their package now includes an ICW-accredited foundation system – a complete solution for clients that brings significant cost and time savings, particularly for brownfield sites. This is an outstanding advanced timber superstructure system, and I am looking forward to helping TALO to scale its impact and bring these innovations to even more housebuilding clients.”
